


Goodbye Norma Joan

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Mad Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-23
Updated: 2008-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1633853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paul and Roger talk about the woman they both cared about, over drinks and smokes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye Norma Joan

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Vicky Ocean

 

 

Title: Goodbye Norma Joan

Recipient: Vicky Ocean

Fandom: Mad Men

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Paul and Roger talk about the woman they both cared about, over drinks and smokes. 

Pairings: Past Joan/Roger, Past Joan/Paul

Roger Sterling lounged on the couch in his office. Breaking the posture the Navy had instilled in him as a young man, his spine felt as liquid as his lunch, and his shoulders slumped without any trace of his usual pride. His knees were far apart, making room for his hands, which rested on the cushion, balancing a mostly empty drink. His head apparently lolled on his neck. His chin was dropped, and his eyes were dull. But he was conscious. 

It was probably the most pitiful he'd ever looked in this office, and that included the night that began with riding a woman naked across the floor and ended with being wheeled out on a gurney, clutching his chest like an old woman holding a pearl necklace while walking alone at night through a colored neighborhood. 

It was well after five-thirty--he'd heard the employees leaving, in a rush, and then the stragglers picking up their things and departing. The door opened on the gloom. Expecting Ginger, he looked up, eyes dull and barely focused. Instead, there was only one of the junior copywriters, the one with the pipe and deep voice, who Roger almost never saw alone. His jacket was unbuttoned, and the tie loosened more than was acceptable for a work day. But then it wasn't a day anymore, was it? 

From the looks of him, Paul had already had a drink or two, though Roger would bet dollars to donuts that he was further on than the younger man. Sterling had started with gin--he knew where he stood with the clear liquors. But after two generous martinis that drained the once half empty bottle, he didn't really want to know where he stood. So he'd turned to the rye that he usually kept on hand for Don.

The faithful Ginger trotted in behind the man, "Mr. Sterling, I--"

Roger waved his hand at her in a benediction of sorts, and mumbled, "You can go home now." Ginger retreated, pulling the door shut behind her. 

"Did you know about this?" The copywriter, Kinsey, asked, gripping a newspaper clipping.

Roger hoisted a glass in the affirmative, "I heard."

Kinsey checked himself and looked around. A distinctive green glass bottle that had contained an excellent Tangueray London Dry Gin lay on the floor next to the couch, empty. Some amber-colored liquid sat in the bottom third of an upright crystal decanter. 

Red and green. Her colors, for the wedding and for life. 

"You knew before I did." The younger man realized aloud. 

"They sent a telegram." Sterling confirmed. "Attention Mr. Sterling." He swigged a mouthful of rye--no class in this drinking. This was the drunken sailor on leave. "She was here ten years, so they sent a telegram. Funeral time and location. Didn't even call."

"They?" Kinsey asked, fascinated. He'd had an inkling that Roger would care, but this seemed...extreme. 

"Her people. The old roommate, I imagine."

"Carol." Kinsey nodded. "She hated me. And so I had to read about it in the paper. Like I was nothing to her." 

"She hated me too." Something about the tone of Paul's voice shook Roger out of his stupor. "I think she hated me more; she made sure I knew."

"Touché." Paul shrugged.

"Did you attend the wedding?" Kinsey asks, regret thick in his tone. 

"If you'd been there, you'd know." Roger replied, wit still working through the cloud of drink. 

Kinsey looks at the stuff in the decanter. "I was there. I'm told I made a toast that inspired Cosgrove to write a new short story."

"Ah." Roger tilted his head back, then returned to center, trying to get himself together. "I was on my second honeymoon. Think Jane planned it that way."

Kinsey pulled his pipe and a packet of tobacco from an inside pocket of his jacket, to keep his hands and mouth busy in the silence. He'd like to have said something cutting about Jane Sterling, but even at this point of drunkenness, after hours, Kinsey was not Don Draper. There were things he could not say.

"Get a glass." Roger ordered, "I hate to drink alone."

Conscious of the honor and of the bizarreness of the moment, Paul crossed the room and got a glass. He set the pipe away, without having lit it. He returned and lifted the decanter. Rather than smelling to test, he asked, "What's in that?"

"Good Rye Whiskey." Roger answers. "Best kind for Manhattans. She liked those."

"Strong stuff. You smell it coming, but it still surprises you." He observed. Paul filled his mouth, let the liquor numb his tongue and the roof of his mouth. He finally allowed it to burn all the way down to his belly. And that powerful perfume and slow burn in the belly, those are like her as well, but he doesn't need to say that. Not to Roger, who was also burned by her. 

They drank quietly for a moment. Then Roger observed, "Color reminds me of her hair. Not when the light's on it. But like this. In the dark."

Paul considers, "I'm not sure I see it." He'd loved her hair--sometimes, he thought it had been made for a man's hands. Thought that she wore it pinned up to tease him with dreams about pulling it down, out of those pins, in front of the steno pool and the voyeurs behind the frosted glass walls. 

Those fantasies were pretty pedestrian, but they'd helped him pass many a meeting spent waiting for Don Draper to deign to make an appearance. But while most of the men at Sterling Cooper had panted after her at one time or another, evaluating, celebrating, and discussing amongst themselves her finest features (the rack, the ass, the legs, the hourglass silhouette, the spectacular red hair, the paler-than-pale skin, the oh-so-kissable lips), they'd mostly forgotten her when she left at the beginning of 1964, after the first year anniversary of her marriage.

Now and again, an old timer would sigh about the new Office Manager--competent and discreet as she was, "Sourpuss Hildy" was no Joan Holloway (not even a Joan Harris), in looks or skills. 

It was upon these two men she'd made a lasting impression. After all, Paul and Roger could say for certain what Joan's real hair color was.

How appropriate then, to drink together, after her death, before her funeral.

"What the hell do you think happened?" Paul finally asked. 

Roger graced him with a look that asked wordlessly `what kind of idiot are you?'

"You...you were married." Paul said lamely.

"For almost thirty years."Roger tipped his glass in acknowledgment. 

"It's not...it's not supposed to go that way." Paul's startled by his own inability to articulate what he means. "To end, like that."

Roger snorts. "Marriages end in one of two ways. Having been through a divorce, I thought the other way would be easier."

Paul knows he's supposed to laugh, like they always do, and then make a joke, even if he doesn't really find anything funny in the current situation. He tries anyway. "Joanie always did like proving us wrong."

Roger finished what was in his glass, then looked a bit sick. And who can say if it's the drink or the topic of conversation. "You know I tried to set her up in an apartment?"

"I didn't know." Paul answered. "I'm not surprised," he qualified, "but I didn't know."

"She always was good at keeping secrets."

"Her mouth shut tighter than Peggy Olsen's knees." Paul agreed, stubbing out a cigarette in an ash tray.

"I didn't like him." Roger announced, switching topics with the logic of the drunk. "She thought I was jealous. And of course she would."

It took a minute for Kinsey to catch up. "A handsome doctor, young, who practically pulled on a cape and saved the world in his spare time? Who wouldn't hate him?" Paul recycled a line from around the time of the weddings of Joan and Jane, who married in the same week. 

The men chuckled together, but it was like a laugh in a pitch that was bombing--to cover the ugliness. 

"Do you think--I can't tell from the paper--was it" Kinsey stumbled. Finally, he swallowed, "Was it by her own hand?"

"She was no Marilyn. Had the assets, even some of the mystery. Especially about the end. It was pills; that I found out when I called."

"So it could've been her." Paul said. "She wouldn't want anything to be ugly. Even death."

Roger didn't agree or disagree, or answer directly. 

Paul felt compelled to argue the opposite of what he'd just said, "He was a doctor. He would've known how many to give her. Like you said, two ways out. And he's a heel."

"He is." Roger agreed quietly. "But the only person who knew what happened in that marriage, and at the end of it, will keep that secret."

Kinsey rolled his eyes. 

Roger changed the subject again, "I had this little picture of how it would be." 

Paul frowned, sipped at his drink. He hadn't learned much from this, except that Sterling had cared for Joan more than Paul had expected. Maybe more than Joan had known. 

"I'd planned to die first, of course. I had hours to think about it, in the hospital. She'd be at my funeral, of course. Right up front, Mona and Margaret be damned. Black dress, low cut, painted on. Perfect hat, little net veil. She'd cry of course, very prettily. Argue with Mona. Maybe even enough to rip the dress."

Paul laughed appreciatively. "Add Jane to that picture and you have a very pretty picture." 

"She was young. Now she always will be," Roger reflected. "At thirty, they usually lose something. Some glow, and no powder or soap brings it back, no matter what we tell them. She didn't lose it. Not completely. She thought she had, but not her."

And that, Paul realized, was how Roger Sterling saw Joan Holloway--as she'd been at twenty-nine, when she'd been his mistress and the undisputed queen of Sterling Cooper's steno pool. He'd frozen her at that moment, ignoring the changes.

They might never know why Joan Harris died before her second anniversary, or who to blame. They would never know her secrets, or even how many secrets she'd managed to keep. But they did remember her, the best way they knew. 

They split the last of the rye between their glasses. Paul picked up his pipe and prepared it methodically. Roger lazily withdrew a cigarette, and lit it unsteadily. They smoked in silence, sipping at the liquor. 

Together, they remembered Joan the only way they knew how--with strong drink and silence, in a room slowly filling with smoke, at the office where she'd met, manipulated, and managed them. 

 


End file.
